Neighbourhood Planning Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell]

If the hon. Lady bears with me for a few minutes, I will make that crystal clear and, I hope, provide the reassurance she is looking for.

The changes in respect of permitted development rights for the change of use or demolition of pubs mean that in future a planning application will be required in all cases. This will also be the case for premises in mixed use, for example as a pub and a restaurant. This addresses the long-standing call that there should be local consideration and an opportunity for the community to comment on the future of their local pub. It is important that local planning authorities have relevant planning policies in place to support this decision taking. Once we have made the changes, the current provisions, which remove permitted development rights for the change of use or demolition of pubs that are listed as assets of community value, are no longer necessary and will fall away.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will there be any provision or requirement with regard to the viability of the pub in that premise, so there will be some kind of case that those who wish to change could mount?

[Gavin Barwell]

Clearly, those are arguments that could be made by an applicant in respect of a particular planning application, but the Government are not proposing to allow any permitted development rights in that regard. It would require the local authority to consider the planning application and to reach a decision. I am sure that in respect of what my right hon. Friend and others have said, those arguments will be considered when planning applications are being made.

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[Greg Mulholland]

I am asking the Minister and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The Secretary of State’s name is on the amendment, so I take this opportunity to thank him because he has clearly listened and accepted the proposal. As he knows, I also go to pubs in his constituency because I have family in Bromsgrove.

It is for the experts in the Department to consider the possibility of introducing a moratorium, because there is no possibility of it being done externally. This is not a matter simply for the industry. The Co-op is probably the worst pub killer of all the supermarket chains, others of which have been pretty bad. The supermarket chains are not part of the pub sector, and they see pubs as fodder for imposing their unwanted stores on communities. The supermarket chains will clearly not jump to do this, and nor will developers that are seeking to exploit high land values in London, St Albans and other parts of the country. From that point of view, it would be great if the Minister said that there should be a moratorium and, in the spirit of this change, called on people not to pursue such conversions now that they are deemed by Parliament to be wrong.

This is not the end of the matter. Ultimately, it has not been about securing great protection for pubs; that is one of the things that has been rather misunderstood and misrepresented, sometimes by both sides of the argument. It is simply about giving communities a say and about removing absurd permitted development rights that created a loophole that has been exploited by large pub-owning companies and large supermarkets for too long. There will still be predatory developers, and pub companies will still seek to undermine pubs to secure development or to go through the planning process for building a supermarket.

As I have said, the assets of community value scheme remains important, but it is now time to consider strengthening it. Giving communities a genuine right to buy, as communities in Scotland have, is long overdue and would represent genuine localism. I have had a conversation with the Minister, and it is now time to consider a separate category in the planning and tax system for community pubs, which are the ones that we really care about. They are the ones that have the community value, which many Members have mentioned, in a way that other licensed drinking establishments do not.

CAMRA has so far said that it does not want to engage in this, but it is now time to crack the nut of defining a genuine community pub that does the things we have talked about and that has value to the community. The British Pub Confederation and Protect Pubs certainly wish to do so. If we do that, in addition to creating the extra layer of genuine planning protection for those pubs, and only those pubs, against predatory development, and only when the pubs are viable, we can crack the nut of having a different system of taxation, and we will never again see the disastrous headlines for the Treasury such as of one pub in York facing a 600% increase in its rateable value. I was in that very small pub, the wonderful Slip Inn, a couple of weeks ago during the Liberal Democrat conference. As I did at the meeting with the hon. Member for Bristol North West, I offer to work with the Minister to find a way of doing that, which could offer the security we need for our hugely important, viable community pubs.

This wonderful news is the start of a conversation, and I thank the Minister and all those involved. This is a hugely significant day in pub campaigning. As this is English Tourism Week, I know that every Member here today, and many more who are not, will want to raise a glass to this win for pubs and to the Minister for listening to all the campaigners who have helped to make it happen. They will want to toast this victory and the importance of the great English and great British pub.

[John Redwood]

I, too, am happy to support the Minister on his amendments. Like other Members, I have been lobbied by constituents who think that they should have the right to intervene, with a proper planning process, in the unique case of a pub. It will be a great pleasure to write back to them to say that we have a listening Minister who has heard their representations and the strong lobbying by colleagues here who have been campaigning on this issue for a long time. However, when we make this legislative change, we must also remind people that it does not save every pub. As the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) made clear, those who are keenest to save their local pub need to make sure that enough people use it. The only ultimate guarantee that it can continue to serve is that people like and support it, or that they in a friendly way influence the owner or manager so that it provides the service and range that they wish and it will thereby attract sufficient community support. This is a welcome legislative change but we need to remind people that local government will be no more able to save a pub than national Government if there is not that strong body of support in the local community and an offer that people want.

The Minister is right to give the pubs the maximum flexibility to change what they do. If pubs are to serve the evolving communities of our country, they sometimes need to move on what they offer by way of the balance between food and drinks, the ambience and the surroundings, because people’s tastes and people change, community by community. I therefore welcome the extra flexibility he is giving.

The main point I wish to make relates to the wider issue of changes from offices to homes and other changes of use class. The Minister is right to say that he needs to preserve flexibility. Any Member visiting a high street or centre in their own or another community knows that an avalanche of change is taking place. The internet, digitisation, robotics and automation are making a huge difference to the way business is conducted and services are delivered. A lot of change to the shape of the high street and the adjacent streets, and some of the office areas, will be required to make sure that the property there is updated and flexible so that it can meet the requirements of these evolving businesses.

We need flexibility, as in some cases we will have too many shops or offices, and it would be much better if they were converted to housing, because there is considerable need in town and city centres, as well as elsewhere, for additional housing. If some of that could be at prices that young people can afford, that would be an excellent bonus, as we still face a huge problem, with a new generation of potential homeowners priced out of many parts of the country by the very high prices. We need to understand that many of the new businesses and the new service offers will be internet-based and will come from new service centres that do not have to be in the town centres, and that the kind of things that people do need physical property for in the town or city centre will be different from the more traditional uses to which we have been accustomed.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend think that the transformation of shops and offices into homes can regenerate town centres?

[John Redwood]

Yes, it can, with the right mixture. Some offices may need to be transformed into homes and a broader retail offer, with a higher proportion of coffee shops, restaurants and so on, may need to be made. If more people are living in flats or smaller properties that they can afford in the town centre, they may well then make more use of the town in the evening, and the range of services and the life of the town is thus extended beyond the traditional shopping hours during the day. I am sure the Minister understands all that. I hope he will see how he can develop other ways to ensure that our planning system for commercial property is sufficiently flexible to allow residential use where that is the best answer and to ensure flexible use patterns in the commercial property that we have, as massive change will be needed.

The planning system of course has to protect the things that the community legitimately wants to protect, so we do not want non-conforming uses in certain areas and we certainly do not want bad or noisy neighbours, who may be regulated by planning or by other general laws on nuisance. Within that, we need maximum flexibility so that commercial owners and managers can adapt or change the use of their premises, or swap them for a more appropriate property for their use. If the planning system can facilitate that, it will greatly improve our flexibility as an economy, meaning that we can modernise more rapidly and move on to a more productive world, which is the main feature of the Chancellor’s policies for our economy.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

First, may I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a shareholder of a small family business which for the past 40 years has included a single pub? Today, there has been a huge amount of agreement on the appropriateness of the Government’s amendments to Lords amendment 22, and I pay tribute to a lot of people who have been involved in that process. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland), who is also, in effect, the Member for CAMRA in this House. I know how seriously he takes his duties in that respect. He rightly highlighted English Tourism Week, but even more importantly this weekend we have the Gloucester beer festival. It runs from 31 March to 1 April, which, appropriately, some may say, happens to be my wedding anniversary, and takes place in the historic setting of Blackfriars, the world’s best-preserved Dominican priory. So I invite all Members to come to Gloucester this weekend, as there will be 100 beers, 30 ciders and perries, and an unbelievable atmosphere, in a great and noble old setting.

That deals with the preamble, so I come on to what I really want to say. I seek to strike a slightly different note, mild caution, and ask the Minister whether he has thought carefully about the possible unintended consequences of his amendment—I am sure he has. It would be a cruel irony if, in trying to protect pubs, this addition to the Bill triggered sales of pubs by small owners and increased the stranglehold on pubs of the large pubcos and very large brewers.

The Minister will know that there is a long history of unintended consequences in the brewing and pub sector. If we go back in time, we find that this House legislated against individual brewers owning more than 2,000 pubs, which inadvertently created large pubcos. The wheel has now almost come full circle, with Heineken proposing to buy back 2,000 pubs from a pubco. So there are times when, by trying to manage too finely what happens to our pubs, we end up with unintended consequences.

My concern, which I have also heard expressed by one or two small owners of pubs in my constituency, is that this sort of change could threaten the covenant with the banks that finance them. Lenders may lend more willingly on the understanding that in the unfortunate event of the pub failing there will always be value in the buildings for other uses, as that then underpins the security on which they lend to small owners. As in our pub, it is the small owners of pubs who tend to develop their own brewhouse and produce the real ale that CAMRA is all about. On the whole, the large pubcos and large brewers, who have their own entirely tied arrangements, are not going to produce the creative, small beers and the brewhouses which have regenerated this whole sector so effectively over the past 10 or 15 years.

Therefore, my question to the Minister is: has he thought carefully about the possible unintended consequences? Has he had any discussions with some of the individual owners of pubs or with their bankers and lenders? Will he reassure us that he believes that these changes are a compromise that do give enough flexibility to retain the support of those who lend to small owners of pubs and to provide that variety—what the hon. Member for Leeds North West was calling the “community pubs”? That is hard to define, but it is often when a pub is family-owned.

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[John Redwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the most prosperous and dynamic town and city centres in our country have a phenomenal rate of change, with constant re-use, modernisation and updating of the properties.

[Jim McMahon]

I entirely accept that point, but I have a rather simplistic view—perhaps it is a naive view—that local communities should have a voice in that development. It is really important that local people have some sense of ownership and direction over their town, village or city. Many people feel completely excluded from that process. There is an issue with the extension of permitted development rights to cover office conversions. It could be that the local community has decided that such a move is right for their area and that it should therefore be supported, but that can be dealt with through a normal planning application. If the community is supportive of it and if the right accommodation has been chosen for the outdoor play area, for waste collection, for parking and for all the other amenities that are required, that will be facilitated through the normal planning process. I shall press the Minister to look again at that matter.

A compelling vision of what the British pub can be, and of what it can expect from our Government would be welcomed not just by the pub industry but, more broadly, by the whole community. I say to the Minister that, rather than waiting for someone else to come forward with such a vision or for Cabinet approval, he could pull the whole thing together himself. There are plenty of all-party groups that would absolutely be willing to contribute to that conversation. On the Labour Benches, I and others would want to play our part in doing that, because it is so important. When these pubs are gone, they are gone forever and they will never come back. For many areas, once that happens, it is development that has gone too far.

It would be remiss of me not to reflect on the fact that we are considering this amendment because of the fantastic work of Lord Kennedy in the other place in recognising how important this matter is and in bringing it forward. I am pleased with the Government’s approach to this amendment, but of course the amendment would not be here for debate had it not been for the work of the Members in the other place. I thank Lord Kennedy and the others who contributed to that debate for the work that they have done. Members who are involved in all-party groups should continue with their work. From the Labour Benches I say to the Minister that if there is anything we can do in policy development terms to support this work that is so critical to the fabric of our communities, he has our time, support and energy in seeing it through.